“It was during the first earthquake. After the great shocks were over they went back to their house from the fields in which they had taken refuge. The house was in ruins. There was part of one wall standing and he made a shelter against it with some boards. They found some food that had been in the house but the tanks had been
broken and there was no water. He left her with the boy, their son, and went to look for water. Some friends who had a house near theirs were away in Istanbul. That house, too, had fallen, but he went among the ruins to find the water tanks. He found them and one of them had not been broken. He had nothing to take the water back in so he searched for a jug or a tin. He found a jug. It was of silver and had been partly crushed by the falling stones. After the earthquake, soldiers had been sent to patrol the streets to prevent looting, of which there was a great deal because valuable things were lying everywhere in the ruins. As he was standing there trying to straighten the jug, a soldier arrested him. Signora Beronelli knew nothing of this and when he did not come back she and her son went to look for him. But there was such chaos that she could do nothing. The next day she heard that he had been shot. Is that not a terrible tragedy?”
“Yes, it is a tragedy. Such things happen.”
“If the good God had killed him in the earthquake she could bear it more easily. But for him to be shot …! She is very brave. She does not blame the soldiers. With so much chaos they cannot be blamed. It was the Will of the good God.”
“He is a comedian. I have noticed it before.”
“Do not blaspheme.”
“It is
you
who blaspheme. You talk of the good God as if He were a waiter with a fly-swatter. He hits at the flies and kills some. But one escapes. Ah,
le salaud
! The waiter hits again and the fly is paste with the others. The good God is not like that. He does not make earthquakes and tragedies. He is of the mind.”
“You are insupportable. Have you no pity for the poor woman?”
“Yes, I pity her. But will it help her if we hold another burial service? Will it help her if I stay awake arguing instead of going to sleep as I wish? She told you this because she likes to talk of it. Poor soul! It eases her mind to become the heroine of a tragedy. The fact becomes less real. But if there is no audience, there is no tragedy. If she tells me, I, too, will be a good audience. Tears will come into my eyes. But you are not the heroine. Go to sleep.”
“You are a beast without imagination.”
“Beasts must sleep. Good night,
chérie!”
“Camel!”
There was no answer. After a moment or two he sighed heavily and turned over in his bunk. Soon he began gently to snore.
For a time Graham lay awake listening to the rush of the sea outside and the steady throb of the engines. A waiter with a fly-swatter! In Berlin there was a man whom he had never seen and whose name he did not know, who had condemned him to death; in Sofia there was a man named Moeller who had been instructed to carry out the sentence; and here, a few yards away in cabin number nine, was the executioner with a nine millimetre calibre self-loading pistol, ready, now that he had disarmed the condemned man, to do his work and collect his money. The whole thing was as impersonal, as dispassionate, as justice itself. To attempt to defeat it seemed as futile as to argue with the hangman on the scaffold.
He tried to think of Stephanie and found that he could
not. The things of which she was a part, his house, his friends, had ceased to exist. He was a man alone, transported into a strange land with death for its frontiers: alone but for the one person to whom he could speak of its terrors. She was sanity. She was reality. He needed her. Stephanie he did not need. She was a face and a voice dimly remembered with the other faces and voices of a world he had once known.
His mind wandered away into an uneasy doze. Then he dreamed that he was falling down a precipice and awoke with a start. He switched on the light and picked up one of the books he had bought that afternoon. It was a detective story. He read a few pages and then put it down. He was not going to be able to read himself to sleep with news of “neat, slightly bleeding” holes in the right temples of corpses lying “grotesquely twisted in the final agony of death.”
He got out of his bunk, wrapped himself in a blanket, and sat down to smoke a cigarette. He would, he decided, spend the rest of the night like that: sitting and smoking cigarettes. Lying prone increased his sense of helplessness. If only he had a revolver.
It seemed to him as he sat there that the having or not having of a revolver was really as important to a man as the having or not having of sight. That he should have survived for so many years without one could only be due to chance. Without a revolver a man was as defenceless as a tethered goat in a jungle. What an incredible fool he had been to leave the thing in his suitcase! If only …
And then he remembered something Josette had said:
“José has a revolver in his box. I will try to get it for you.”
He drew a deep breath. He was saved. José had a revolver. Josette would get it for him. All would be well. She would probably be on deck by ten. He would wait until he was sure of finding her there, tell her what had happened, and ask her to get the revolver there and then. With luck he would have it in his pocket within half an hour or so of his leaving his cabin. He would be able to sit down to luncheon with the thing bulging in his pocket. Banat would get a surprise. Thank goodness for José’s suspicious nature!
He yawned and put out his cigarette. It would be stupid to sit there all night: stupid, uncomfortable, and dull. He felt sleepy, too. He put the blanket back on the bunk and lay down once more. Within five minutes he was asleep.
When he again awoke, a crescent of sunlight slanting through the porthole was rising and falling on the white paint of the bulkhead. He lay there watching it until he had to get up to unlock the door for the steward bringing his coffee. It was nine o’clock. He drank the coffee slowly, smoked a cigarette, and had a hot sea water bath. By the time he was dressed it was close on ten o’clock. He put on his coat and left the cabin.
The alleyway on to which the cabins opened was only just wide enough for two persons to pass. It formed three sides of a square, the fourth side of which was taken up by the stairs to the saloon and shelter deck and two small
spaces in which stood a pair of dusty palms in earthenware tubs. He was within a yard or two of the end of the alleyway when he came face to face with Banat.
The man had turned into the alleyway from the space at the foot of the stairs, and by taking a pace backwards he could have given Graham room to pass; but he made no attempt to do so. When he saw Graham, he stopped. Then, very slowly, he put his hands in his pockets and leaned against the steel bulkhead. Graham could either turn round and go back the way he had come or stay where he was. His heart pounding at his ribs, he stayed where he was.
Banat nodded. “Good morning, Monsieur. It is very fine weather to-day, eh?”
“Very fine.”
“For you, an Englishman, it must be very agreeable to see the sun.” He had shaved and his pasty jowl gleamed with unrinsed soap. The smell of attar of roses came from him in waves.
“Most agreeable. Excuse me.” He went to push by to the stairs.
Banat moved, as if by accident, blocking the way. “It is so narrow! One person must give way to the other, eh?”
“Just so. Do you want to go by?”
Banat shook his head. “No. There is no hurry. I was so anxious to ask you, Monsieur, about your hand. I noticed it last night. What is the matter with it?”
Graham met the small, dangerous eyes staring insolently into his. Banat knew that he was unarmed and was trying to unnerve him as well. And he was succeeding.
Graham had a sudden desire to smash his knuckles into the pale, stupid face. He controlled himself with an effort.
“It is a small wound,” he said calmly. And then his pent up feelings got the better of him. “A bullet wound, to be exact,” he added. “Some dirty little thief took a shot at me in Istanbul. He was either a bad shot or frightened. He missed.”
The small eyes did not flicker but an ugly little smile twisted the mouth. Banat said slowly: “A dirty little thief, eh? You must look after yourself carefully. You must be ready to shoot back next time.”
“I shall shoot back. There is not the slightest doubt of that.”
The smile widened. “You carry a pistol, then?”
“Naturally. And now, if you will excuse me …” He walked forward intending to shoulder the other man out of the way if he did not move. But Banat moved. He was grinning now. “Be very careful, Monsieur,” he said, and laughed.
Graham had reached the foot of the stairs. He paused and looked back. “I don’t think it will be necessary,” he said deliberately. “These scum don’t risk their skins with an armed man.” He used the word
excrément
.
The grin faded from Banat’s face. Without replying he turned and went on to his cabin.
By the time Graham reached the deck, reaction had set in. His legs seemed to have gone to jelly and he was sweating. The unexpectedness of the encounter had helped and, all things considered, he had not come out of it too badly. He’d put up a bluff. Banat might conceivably
be wondering if, after all, he had a second revolver. But bluff wasn’t going to go very far now. The gloves were off. His bluff might be called. Now, whatever happened, he
must
get José’s revolver.
He walked quickly round the shelter deck. Haller was there with his wife on his arm, walking slowly. He said good morning; but Graham did not want to talk to anyone but the girl. She was not on the shelter deck. He went on up to the boat deck.
She was there, but talking to the young officer. The Mathis and Mr. Kuvetli were a few yards away. Out of the corner of his eye he saw them look at him expectantly but he pretended not to have seen them and walked over to Josette.
She greeted him with a smile and a meaning look intended to convey that she was bored with her companion. The young Italian scowled a good morning and made to take up the conversation where Graham had interrupted it.
But Graham was in no mood for courtesies. “You must excuse me, Monsieur,” he said in French; “I have a message for Madame from her husband.”
The officer nodded and stood aside politely.
Graham raised his eyebrows. “It is a
private
message, Monsieur.”
The officer flushed angrily and looked at Josette. She nodded to him in a kindly way and said something to him in Italian. He flashed his teeth at her, scowled once more at Graham and stalked on.
She giggled. “You were really very unkind to that poor boy. He was getting on so nicely. Could you think of
nothing better than a message from José?”
“I said the first thing that came into my head. I had to speak to you.”
She nodded approvingly. “That is very nice.” She looked at him slyly. “I was afraid that you would spend the night being angry with yourself because of last night. But you must not look so solemn. Madame Mathis is very interested in us.”
“I’m feeling solemn. Something has happened.”
The smile faded from her lips. “Something serious?”
“Something serious. I …”
She glanced over his shoulder. “It will be better if we walk up and down and look as if we are talking about the sea and the sun. Otherwise they will be gossiping. I do not care what people say, you understand. But it would be embarrassing.”
“Very well.” And then, as they began to walk: “When I got back to my cabin last night I found that my revolver had been stolen from my suitcase.”
She stopped. “This is true?”
“Quite true.”
She began to walk again. “It may have been the steward.”
“No. Banat had been in my cabin. I could smell that scent of his.”
She was silent for a moment. Then: “Have you told anyone?”
“It’s no use my making a complaint. The revolver will be at the bottom of the sea by now. I have no proof that Banat took it. Besides, they wouldn’t listen to me after the scene I made with the Purser yesterday.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Ask you to do something for me.”
She looked at him quickly. “What?”
“You said last night that José had a revolver and that you might be able to get it for me.”
“You are serious?”
“Never more so in all my life.”
She bit her lip. “But what am I to say to José if he finds that it is gone?”
“Will he find out?”
“He may do.”
He began to get angry. “It was, I think, your idea that you should get it for me.”
“It is so necessary that you should have a revolver? There is nothing that he can do.”
“It was also your idea that I should carry a revolver.”
She looked sullen. “I was frightened by what you said about this man. But that was because it was dark. Now that it is daytime it is different.” She smiled suddenly. “Ah, my friend, do not be so serious. Think of the nice time we will have in Paris together. This man is not going to make any trouble.”
“I’m afraid he is.” He told her about his encounter by the stairs, and added: “Besides, why did he steal my revolver if he doesn’t intend to make trouble?”
She hesitated. Then she said slowly: “Very well, I will try.”
“Now?”
“Yes, if you wish. It is in his box in the cabin. He is in the
salone
reading. Do you want to wait here for me?”
“No, I’ll wait on the deck below. I don’t want to have
to talk to these people here just now.”
They went down and stood for a moment by the rail at the foot of the companionway.
“I’ll stay here.” He pressed her hand. “My dear Josette, I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you for this.”
She smiled as if at a small boy to whom she had promised sweets. “You shall tell me that in Paris.”
He watched her go and then turned to lean against the rail. She could not be more than five minutes. He stared for a time at the long, curling bow wave streaming out and away to meet the transverse wave from the stern and be broken by it into froth. He looked at his watch. Three minutes. Someone clattered down the companionway.